Page 2 of Deck the Halls in Secret Agents

Soon Stephens wafted over with a mug shaped like a snowman and a blanket striped like a candy cane, and Biffy darted off to attend his eddying swirls of guests. As George sipped hot cocoa from the warm mug, the warm blanket around his shoulders, he began to feel almost human again—and began, also, to feel a fizz of anticipation.

Not that he allowed himself to look at Nikolai, of course. Not directly. He turned his gaze toward the revellers, who had begun to pull Christmas crackers with hoots of glee that rivaled the pop as the crackers burst open. But his whole attention was on Nick (always best to think of him by his current alias; harder to slip up that way), Nick lounging on the couch, apparently staring into space, but just as aware of George as George was of him. Another chance to match wits; another chance to even the score.

And, of course, another chance to fuck.

It was always different, every time. In London, Nicholas Merton always bottomed. Later on, as Klaus Merkel in Berlin, he topped almost every time, except that last night, which George hadn’t known was the last night, but looking back he was pretty sure Nikolai did. Oh, George had lost that one, all right. And that one time in Paris, Nicolas Merde (that wasn’t his actual last name, of course, George had given him the nickname and now couldn’t remember Nikolai’s actual alias at the time)—a brief run-in, just the one evening, George had carried off the honors that time, but what he really remembered was the hard oak floor as he knelt below the bar giving Nicolas the blow job of his life…

And then in DC, when Nikolai had been shot. George kneeling on the concrete floor, pressing one hand to the wound to slow the bleeding, holding Nikolai’s hand with the other. I suppose you can’t let an intelligence asset die, Nikolai had said, his voice a whisper, speaking in his own accent for once in his life.

That’s not why I’m doing this, you Russian bastard.

Ukrainian!

George hadn’t heard anyone sound so offended since the time he’d called a Scotchman English. How was I supposed to know, Nicholas Merton Merkel Melville?

Meleshenko, Nikolai said, and passed out. Or so George had thought, anyway, and he left Nikolai to call an ambulance, he had to run to the payphone outside, it took him less than three minutes, but when he came back—no Nikolai. Bastard had climbed out a window.

George had followed the blood trail down the fire escape, but it stopped at the curb. Nikolai must’ve caught a cab.

He’d given George his real name, though. Nikolai Aleksandrovitch Meleshenko. George had seen it a hundred times on his dossier.

And now they were head to head again. They both needed to sneak away to look for those stupid letters, but without letting the other know where they were going, in case he didn’t already know the letters were in the attic…

Although it was possible that Nick knew more about the letters’ whereabouts than George did, in which case George had better try to follow him. Searching the whole attic would take weeks, which he didn’t have.

He drained the dregs of his hot chocolate and allowed himself a quick glance at Nick as he set the snowman mug on the side table next to the snowglobe. Nick appeared to be asleep. Almost certainly a ruse, of course. But George was hungry, his stomach rumbling insistently now that the cocoa had woken it up, so gently he rose to his feet.

Nick’s eyes opened instantly, of course. “Moseying over to the feed trough?” he asked.

Not to be out-Americaned, George replied heartily, “That’s the idea, pardner.”

Nick rose too. They ambled through the crowd, not quite together but never losing sight of each other, till they came to the long buffet table.

A cranberry red cloth draped the table all the way to the floor. A white and gold runner ran down the center, interspersed at intervals with lit candelabra and bonsai-sized kumquat trees. (Two younger guests, the grown children perhaps of Biffy’s Skellington chums, were tossing kumquats at each other.) On the table reposed the remains of a feast: half a roast suckling pig, the carcass of a roast goose, a duck accompanied by a dish of cherry compote. Basket of rolls and baguettes, a nod perhaps to the French countryside. Yorkshire puddings accompanied by boats of gravy.

Wading through the snow had left George ravenous. He loaded his plate, as did Nick, and they threaded their way back through the crowd to the couch by the Yule log to feast on their spoils.

George had spent the last year exercising his expense account on the bistros of Paris, but even so, this meal was fantastic. Rich, succulent duck, airy rolls with crisp crackling crust, tender smoky pork… “Do you think they roasted this pig over that Yule log?” George asked Nick.

“Do you see any sign of a…” Nick’s face blanked. He spoke wonderful English, in a variety of perfect accents, but every once a while obscure pieces of vocabulary tripped him up.

“A spit,” George supplied. They both eyed the fireplace, and after a lengthy but rather vague examination that consisted of staring at it, George shook his head. “No.”

“Too bad,” said Nick. “It would have fit with the tapestries.”

George hadn’t noticed the tapestries. He looked up, and saw that indeed, long banner-like Christmas-themed tapestries hung on the walls between the high windows. Eight tiny reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh. A forest of evergreens, with a single blazing star hanging above them. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in a disturbing homage to the Unicorn Tapestry, stood chained in a small fenced enclosure on a field strewn with intricate snowflakes.

Rudolph hung close enough that George could see he was a proper woven tapestry, not just the screen-printed banners of cloth that usually passed for tapestries now. “Where on earth can you get tapestries in this day and age?”

“The rich,” said Nick, “can get anything.”

His accent remained American, his tone bright and cheery. It was only the echo of past arguments that made George hear a challenge in the words. The excesses of capitalism, an economy where some had far too much and others starved. Nikolai’s disappointment at discovering there really were homeless veterans sleeping on benches in DC. I thought that was Pravda propaganda.

A hundred or so of the guests were attempting to sing “We Three Kings.” Under cover of the cacophony, George suggested, “Maybe Rudolph’s a symbol of the working classes. Workers, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Nick started to giggle. He sucked in his breath and held it, as if trying to stop the hiccups, only to burst forth in a helpless torrent of further giggling.

They both went back for a second plate, and afterwards sat in a contented daze. George thought vaguely that he ought to be planning how to sneak up to the attic without Nick knowing. But he was tired, dammit, and it was nice to sit with Nick.

The brass band slipped from “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

“Where do you think they keep the figgy pudding?” asked Nick, who in all his incarnations had a ferocious sweet tooth.

George heaved himself from the couch, his joints cracking. Time was he could’ve waded through the snow all day and stayed wide awake for surveillance all night. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” he said. “They’ve got everything else.”

“Indeed,” said Nick, with a glance at the pair of gilded reindeer who flanked the fireplace.

A tipsy reveler directed them to what he called the “small parlor,” though it was still larger than the studio apartment George inhabited in Paris. Intricate gingerbread houses stood on most of the flat surfaces: the mantelpiece, the tops of the bookshelves, the grand piano where a sweating man in a Santa suit played “O Christmas Tree.” A dozen or so guests stood around him, attempting to sing along but interrupting each other with drunken good humor to argue about the words.

Nick made a happy noise and cut directly across the room. The desserts reposed on an antique sideboard that stood before a window, its red and gold brocade curtains looped back to show a view of the falling snow outside, a flurrying torrent of fat white flakes that quickly blurred into a pure swirling wall of white. The storm had gotten worse. It would be a pain in the ass to dig out his Citro?n tomorrow.

Nick hovered gleefully over silver platters of sugar cookies, gingerbread cake with rum sauce, gingerbread men with dried currants for eyes, miniature mince pies and slices of fruitcake bleeding madeira and a classic Christmas pudding, half-demolished but still elegant with its sprig of holly on top.

George left him to it and repaired to a sofa in front of yet another fireplace, smaller than the massive Yule log in the great hall, but still burning with a cheerful wood flame. He could see Nick in the tall mirror above the fire, which reflected also the gingerbread cottages on the mantelpiece, doubling them into a small village dusted in powdered sugar snow.

The pianist switched to “Silent Night.” George felt a sweet sad rush of nostalgia. This had always been his grandmother’s favorite song, and she’d played it on her upright piano while George and Grandpa sang along. He stretched out his sheepskin slippers toward the fire and tilted his head back to keep an eye on Nick. He looked nice in that dark green sweater… Although when he turned around, the giant Christmas tree on the front detracted from the effect.

Or it should have. But George kept watching him as he crossed the room, admiring Nick’s fair hair, his neat gymnast’s way of moving, that laden plate of desserts in his hand. George smiled just a little.

And then Nick stood at the arm of the sofa. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked, his tone just a little formal, as if they really were strangers.

“Of course not. Nicky—Merton, was it?” George said.

For that was the name he had first met Nikolai under, twenty years ago. Nicholas Merton, a grammar school boy with a chip on his shoulder, lounging in doorways and sneering at posh old Etonians. Fantastic tradecraft. He kept the accent even when they fucked in the alley behind the pub.

Nick didn’t react, of course. “Nicholas Mellon,” he corrected gravely, sitting down. “And you—George Bailey?”

George rolled his eyes. “Looks like it,” he cracked, with a gesture at the Christmas-coated room: stockings hanging by the open fire, a Christmas tree covered in origami partridges and turtledoves. “Although I’ve never thought It’s a Wonderful Life was really a Christmas movie, anyway,” he added. “Just the frame story.”

Nick put a mug of eggnog on the side table and settled his plate of goodies carefully on the middle cushion of the sofa. Characteristically, he had taken a little bit of everything: a gingerbread man, a snowflake sugar cookie, a slice of plum pudding, a pair of delectable-looking little mincemeat pies. “George Bailey wandering out in the storm on Christmas Eve, planning to cast himself in the river,” Nick said, and George wondered when he had seen It’s a Wonderful Life. Nick glanced at George, that sly half-smile that was pure Nicholas Merton, about to jump three of George’s men at checkers in the pub. “Is that what brought you out in this blizzard? Looking for an angel to tell you that your life’s work has been worthwhile?”

“Auditioning for the part of Clarence?” George cracked. But he felt startled and uncomfortable, and to cover it, he stole one of Nick’s mincemeat pies. Delicious, of course, flaky crust just like Grandma used to make, rich dark filling perfectly spiced. “Or,” George asked, “were you out there looking for an angel, too?”

“Ah. I’d need more than an angel to convince me.”

George looked at him. Nick shrugged and bit the head off a gingerbread man. He chewed for a while. He must have been stalling for time: Nick could inhale his food when he wanted to. Then Nick needled, “You can retire, content with a job well done.”

For the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had fallen apart. The only republic it still contained was a Russia swiftly growing less socialist.

George winced. He took a quick inventory of the room in the mirror: no one within fifteen feet to hear their conversation. “You know it’s not anything to do with us,” he said. The Soviet Union had crumpled under the weight of Chernobyl, of a useless quagmire of a war in Afghanistan, of an economy that had never really functioned. All those decades of spying on either side had been…

Well, he hoped they’d been pointless. That was better than harmful, anyway.

The couch lurched as a couple of drunken guests stumbled against it. “Oh, sorry!” they chorused, and staggered off, colliding with the group over by the piano like a couple of poorly aimed bowling balls.

Nick blinked. He took another bite of his gingerbread man, then set the cookie on his plate, and in a neat finicky motion brushed the crumbs from his fingers. Then he turned on George a fake smile. “So,” he said genially, “what do you do?”

“Exports,” George said.

“Well, how about that.” Nick lifted his eggnog in toast. “I’m in the same business.”

***